Draft order is set based on historical data collected every leg (schwarze maintains overall records from each leg, throws out the best and worst ones and generates new average winning percentages each season) which are then used to determine the draft order used for each of the 3 rounds (as others pointed out this is to give bad franchises which have poorer quality players and results better picks). If franchises produce better results, they'll shift positions but that is done per season. So when you pick your team at the start of the draft, you are trading off between getting better franchise players to pick from versus having earlier access to other available players.